Buying a house for the first time has become harder than ever.

A national Realtors report from last November found first time purchases are at an all time low, while the average age of these buyers is at an all time high 40 years old.

Well, a new Kentucky program hopes to turn that trend around with an injection of $10 million directly toward mortgages.

How can you get some of that money?

Our June Lefler explains.

We're going to go in.

This is one of our new bubble homes.

It's three bedroom, two bath, and we'll just show you around.

These realtors turned builders specialize in manufactured homes.

These homes are built highly energy efficient.

They are also coming with a one year warranty.

The duo saw a need for more homes for the first time buyer in more rural central Kentucky.

We noticed, just like everybody else noticed, a huge shortage in inventory for prices around 200 to 250,000 buyers could not get into anything new, you know, or under warranty in that price point.

So they were having to settle or they were having to wait.

This three bedroom, two bath house is going for less than $200,000.

We looked at the idea of maybe doing site built homes and modular homes, and the modular homes were built just as well, if not better in some cases, and they were a portion of the price of a site built home that would have been the same size.

Cedar Hill Properties says their more modest homes are selling well, but this banker knows that still, not everyone can afford that first home.

There's a reality that we all have to face.

We look at our budget.

We look at our income.

We look at our expenses.

And then we ask the question, what can we afford?

And a lot of times what happens is you start settling for less than what you need as a family.

Or some people get discouraged and they fall out of buying a home altogether because they don't feel like it's possible for them, because it's just more than what they can afford.

Kentucky's statewide housing authority has a program to bridge that affordability gap.

The agency will front a 25% down payment for a new buyer.

It used to be you could buy a home for 100,120, 150,000.

There are very few sales now at those price points.

And so we want folks who have what used to be, you know, strong enough incomes to begin their homeownership path, be able to get a shot at it.

It's a loan, but it doesn't have to be paid off until the buyer sells their house, potentially years or decades later.

So there's no interest collected on that.

There's no monthly payment on it.

So it helps with that borrower's monthly obligation.

Once the homeowner sells, 25% of that money returns to the housing agency.

It's called shared appreciation.

When they sell the home.

Or it's time to pay off Sam because they ultimately they will pay it off.

They will pay back that original principal balance that they borrowed.

And then whatever percentage of that original purchase transaction, up to 25% that they borrowed, they'll pay back that same percentage of future appreciation on that home.

Homeowners could save more than $400 on their monthly mortgage, something this banker is eager to tell his clients.

That's $400 a month difference in payment.

That's a car payment.

That's child care.

That's a lot of different things that people are going to able to use that money to be able to, to, to live.

There's a catch.

This program is only for brand new homes.

It's a feature rather than a bug because the housing agency wants more homes built.

And a big picture is to create an incentive for builders who have pretty much been focusing on higher end homes and more custom homes that have very high price points to build more modest homes for your first time buyers.

And the more new homes stick built or manufactured means less strain on the housing market for all buyers and renters.

For Kentucky, Edition, I'm June Lefler.

Thank you.

June.

First time buyers earning 80% of their county's median income qualify for the Sam program.

That includes yearly incomes less than $58,000 for rural counties, and up to $80,000 for urban counties.

To learn more, you can visit K y housing.org.